The French connection, part duex

So, the rest of the meal from last Saturday was really very simple too. For the green beans, with some help from my lovely assistant Little Miss K, we just snapped the ends off and steamed them whole. After they were done (and when I say done, I mean somewhere in-between the almost raw of fancy restaurant fare and overcooked to the point of gray-green stringy mush of Golden Corral) maybe after 5 minutes or so, toss with a little butter and salt. That's it, side dish number one, done.

For the Pommes Frites Campagnard (a.k.a. potato wedges) I actually cut up the potatoes a couple of hours in advance. I had heard that if you place cut potatoes in a bowl of cold, salted water the won't turn brown on you. Well, I'm happy to report that this is absolutely true. I couldn't believe how great they looked! Didn't even have to put 'em in the fridge.

About an hour before I wanted them done, I layed them out on a paper-towel lined baking sheet and let them dry off a little. Thirty minutes later I tossed them with olive oil, garlic powder (yes, between the chicken and potatoes, we were going to have stinky breath that night, but at least it was going to affect all of us), dried thyme, salt and freshly ground pepper. This recipe is slightly modified from one I found in the September issue of Everyday Food. After the chicken was out of the oven resting comfortably and covered in foil, I popped the potatoes in a 475 ° (thank you so much Dershana and Matt for teaching me know how to do this!!!) oven for 20 to 25 minutes. At the end of this time, the potatoes were done, but they weren't as brown as I wanted so I turned the oven up to broil and toasted them for a couple minutes. Perfection!

I'll post about the best part of the meal tomorrow: the galette!